1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a network interface device, and more particularly, to a network interface device which is adapted to electronic devices, such as computers and printers, to connect them to wired or wireless networks.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a network interface device is installed in a network electronic device, such as a computer and a printer, to connect the electronic device to wired, or wireless networks.
FIGS. 1 and 2 show one example of the network electronic device, i.e., a printer. It is common that a printer 100, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, is connected to a network through the employment of network interface devices 150, 150′ which are separately purchased. In this case, the network interface devices 150 and 150′ are removably mounted on a mounting portion 115 of the printer 100, while being selectively blocked from the outside by a side cover 110, and the network interface devices 150 and 150′ usually include a board 151, a bracket 153 and a connecting terminal 155.
The board 151 is usually a printed circuit board (PCB) having predetermined circuits printed thereon, and for the signal exchange with wired or wireless networks, there are a plurality of electronic elements P (see FIG. 3) equipped with a data processing unit (not shown) and a memory (not shown) connected with the predetermined circuits on the board 151. On one side of the board 151, there is the connecting terminal 155 removably mounted on a connecting slot 118 of the printer 100. With the connection between the connecting terminal 155 and the connecting slot 118, the data processing unit (not shown) is connected with a printer control unit 120 (FIG. 4) of the printer 100 so as to mutually exchange signals.
Meanwhile, the bracket 153 is to fix the network interface devices 150 and 150′ to the printer 100, and with the connection between the connecting slot 118 and the connecting terminal 155, the bracket 153 is fixed to the printer 100 by fasteners S. The bracket 153 also has connecting ports 157 and 158, which connect the data processing unit (not shown) to the wired or wireless networks. The connecting port 157 for the wired network is connected with a connecting means such as a LAN cable for a wired network, while the connecting port 158 for a wireless network is connected with separate components such as an antenna A or a light receiving device (not shown) corresponding to the wireless signal transmission/reception mode. If a wireless network interface device having a built-in antenna such as PCMCIA therein is used, the connecting port 158 for a wireless network may be omitted.
The network interface devices 150 and 150′ constructed as described above are mainly characterized into two uses: 1) for use in a wireless network such as a wireless LAN and an IRDA; and 2) for use in a wired network such as Ethernet, which are respectively available on the market.
Accordingly, a plurality of connecting slots 118 also need to be prepared in the printer 100 for the mounting of the plurality of network interface devices 150 and 150′. As a result, the printer 100 usually becomes large-sized, and manufacturing costs also increase.
Additionally, in order for the electronic devices having the two types of network interface devices 150 and 150′ to be connected to the Internet, different Internet protocol (IP) addresses have to be allocated to the network interface devices 150 and 150′ and managed, respectively. As a plurality of IP addresses are allocated and managed for one electronic device, constructing a network costs considerably.
Still further, because the plurality of network interface devices 150 and 150′ each keep physical addresses, i.e., Media Access Control (MAC) addresses, it is difficult to manage the a plurality of IP addresses or the physical addresses when a plurality of network interface devices 150 and 150′ are installed together in a single electronic device.